Books for Intelligent Girls

Posted by Helen Brain Mar 3, 2009

After reading the nauseating 'English Roses' series by Madonna I got really depressed about the state of children's literature. Why are the bookshops filled with piles of paint by numbers books like these? It's the triumph of marketing over literature, sales over imagination, MacDonalds over Michelin stars.

Madonna obviously never lost herself in a book as a child, or she'd realise just how impossible it is to lose yourself in a flat one dimensional world.

What a delight to find a REALLY good book. A real meat and potatoes, mull over, think about, wish I'd written that book. One that lives with you and enriches your inner life.

'The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place' by E.L. Konigsburg is not new - it was published by Walker Books in 2005. But its a wonderful, thoughtful, intelligent book, for girls who think the 'English Roses' is trite and boring.

E.L. Konigsburg rules.